Poplar Forest

From Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia

Poplar Forest, located in Bedford County, Virginia, was owned by Thomas Jefferson and was used as his personal retreat. William Stith originally patented the property in the first half of the eighteenth century, and is most likely the person who gave it its name. In 1764, John Wayles, Thomas Jefferson’s father-in-law, purchased the property from Col. P. Randolph, and in 1773, Martha Jefferson inherited it from her father upon his death.[1]

Thomas Jefferson began building the house at Poplar Forest in 1806 and finished it in 1809. Constructed of brick, it is octagonal in shape and has pedimented porticoes on low arcades at the north and south facades. The interior was rebuilt following a fire in 1845; thus, only the walls, chimneys, and columns are original. Although interior woodwork is not original, the house follows the same floor-plan as designed by Jefferson. In addition to the main house, the original separate kitchen, as well as the smokehouse and two octagonal outhouses still exist.[2]

Following Jefferson’s death in 1826, the property was willed to his grandson, Francis Eppes, who sold it two years later, in 1828. The property was purchased by the Cobbs-Hutter family, who owned it for more than a century, before selling it in 1946. In 1984 the Corporation for Jefferson’s Poplar Forest, a nonprofit foundation created specifically to protect and restore the property and to make it open to the public, purchased Poplar Forest.[3]

The Road to Poplar Forest

Every April, when Monticello was "enlivened
by the reanimation of birds, flowers, the fields,
forests & gardeus," Thomas Jefferson left his
mountaintop on a three-day jouruey in search
of "the solitude of a hermit." His hermitage,
which he had designed himself, lay on his Poplar
Forest plantation in Bedford County-"the
best dwelling house in the state, except that of
Monticello; perhaps preferable to that, as more
proportioned to the faculties of a private citizen."
As Jefferson's life at Monticello, a Mecca
for respectful pilgrims as well as mere sightseers,
became more and more public, his need
for periodic doses of privacy increased. At Poplar
Forest he could escape what his granddaughter
Ellen called "the bustle and hurry of
an almost perpetual round of perpetual round of company," exchanging
it for "rest, leisure, and the power
to carry on his favorite pursuits-to think, to
study, to read."

By the time Jefferson had entered his seventies,
a pattern of retreat had emerged: at least
three annual visits, at the height of spring, in
late summer, and in early winter. Long accustomed
to driving himself in his gig or phaeton,
or making the occasional journey on horseback,
he now found he was obliged "to relinquish the
use of the gigg in travelling on account of fatigue,
for that of a 4. wheeled carriage." In
1814, therefore, he built for himself the first true coach he had ever owned, and characteristically
chose an unusual form, that of a landau.
He had contemplated owning such a vehicle
since 1801, when, he wrote: "Were I to
indulge myself in a carnage of luxury, it should
he a Landau, which in fact is a double Phaeton,
the two tops closing together, when desired, in
the following manner."

Three of Jefferson's slaves were responsible for
executing his design: joiner John Hemings fabricated
the wooden parts, blacksmith Joe Fosset
made the ironwork, and butler Burwell
painted the vehicle, while the final finishing
touches were provided by a Charlottesville
craftsman.

This convertible carriage apparently did not
excite the same admiration as had his earlier
designs for phaetons. One observer reported
the former president driving through Bedford
County in something resembling a mill-hopper,
while a lifelong, friend, Eliza House Trist,
could hardly bring herself to board the vehicle:
"With all due defference to Mr. Jeffersons
taste, I should prefer going in any other
carriage I ever rode in."

Nevertheless this equipage, lined with scarlet rattinet, drawn by four matched bay horses with polished harness of silverplate, and driven
by two young postilions, was an impressive
sight. Jefferson's slave Israel, a postilion on the
landau's maiden voyage in 1814, left a vivid
description of this unusual coach-and-four and
explained the method of driving without lines:
"Mr. Jefferson rode in a splendid carriage
drawn by four horses. It was a sort of double
chaise. When the weather was pleasant the occupants
could enjoy the open air; when it was
rainy, they were protected from it by the closing
of the covering, which fell back from the
middle. . . . My brother Gilly, being older than
I was, rode the near wheel horse, while I was
mounted on the near leader." Jefferson's overseer,
Edmund Bacon, provides an echo: "In his
new carriage, with fine harness, those four
horses (Diomede, Bremo, Tecumseh, and Wellington)
made a splendid appearance."

We will now take the road with Jefferson,
using his journey to Poplar Forest in the spring
of 1816 as a framework for this reconstruction.
Quotations are from his Memorandum Book
and mileages from an itinerary Jefferson made
during one of his journeys.

APRIL 13. "Set out for Poplar Forest." On
his seventy-third birthday, probably shortly
after recording the first spring planting of his
I favorite "grey" snap bean, Jefferson stepped
I into his carriage and gave Israel and Gill the
signal to depart. As not a drop of rain fell between April 6 and May 11, the landau's tops
may have been down, and its occupant may
have looked as George Flower found him at
Poplar Forest later in the year: "His dress, in
color and form, was quaint and old-fashioned,
plain and neat-a dark pepper-and-salt coat, cut in the old quaker fashion, with a single row
of large metal buttons, knee-breeches, gray-
worsted stockings, shoes fastened by large
metal buckles."

Mile 10.7. Here the landau crossed Carter's
Bridge over the Hardware River. Less than a
mile before the bridge the ringing of a bell
could be heard through the sounds of trotting
horses and jangling harness. Jefferson recorded
mileages with an odometer, which had
been given him in 1807 by its maker, James
Clarke of Powhatan County. He mounted it on
the wheel of his carriage and particularly extolled
two of its special features: it divided the
mile decimally into dimes and cents and chimed
like a clock every ten miles. Jefferson found
"great satisfaction in having the miles announced by the bell as by milestones on the
road."

Mile 22.7. Here Jefferson reached the James
River at Warren and spent the night, as he did
the first night of almost every journey to Poplar
Forest, with the first citizen of Warren,
Wilson Cary Nicholas. This great friend had
served as governor of Virginia, his daughter
had recently married Jefferson's grandson Thomas Jefferson Randolph, and his bankruptcy
during the Panic of 1819 would deliver
"coupe de grace" to Jefferson's already
crumbling fortunes.

APRIL 14, "Warren. vales .50 ferrge & watermen
4.D." Jefferson first began using the
English term "vales" in 1786, when he left
gratuities for the servants in his London hotel.
After tipping Nicholas's servants, he crossed
the James River by ferry.

Mile 32.05. By mid-morning the landau
reached the gate of Gibson's tavern, two miles
south of the little Buckingham County community
of Glenmore, but did not turn in. As
his hermit's solitude at Poplar Forest was not
intended to be entirely unrelieved, Jefferson
may have had two female companions to shelter
from the cool winds blowing over the open
landau. Granddaughter Virginia reported that
"in his journeys to Bedford, he always took two
of us along with him. I often now think of those
journeys, generally made in good weather, and
with every attention to our comfort. Early in
the morning, he was sure to have some additional
wrapping to put over the shoulders of
each of us, generally a large cape off from one
of his cloaks, and if the weather was cold we
were wrapped in his furs." A number of letters
identify the fur of choice, a wolfskin pelisse
given to Jefferson in 1798 by General Thaddeus
Kosciuszko. Jefferson suffered a great
deal from the cold in liis later years and this pelisse accompanied him often in his travels.
During one December trip he had, "(thanks to
my pelisse) felt no more sensation of cold on
the road than if I had been in a warm bed."

Mile 39.05. Having travelled on what are
now county routes 627 and 602, the equipage
arrived at the Raleigh tavern, kept by Daniel
Guerrant, just west of Buckingham Courthouse.
Halfway through this long day on the
road, one might have expected the travellers to
take some refreshment there, but it is evident
from the Memorandum Books that Jefferson
stopped at inns during the day only for breakfast
or to feed his horses. He was no exception
to the rule observed by one of his Monticello
visitors, Mrs. William Thornton, that "Virginians
do not stop more than is absolutely necessary
at taverns in travelling." Jefferson himself
said that "cold victuals on the road" were
"better than any thing which any of the country
taverns will give you." One of his granddaughters
described their roadside picnics: "Our
cold dinner was always put up by his own
hands; a pleasant spot by the road-side chosen
to eat it, and he was the carver and helped us
to our cold fowl and ham, and mixed the wine
and water to drink with it."

Mile 56.09. The carriage arrived at the tavern
kept by Major Henry Flood just northwest
of Old Appomattox Courthouse in what was
then Buckingham County. They had finally
reached a major thoroughfare, "the great main road" from New London to Richmond, now
state Route 24.. According to granddaughter
Ellen, "we always stopped at the same simple
country inns, where the country people were
as much pleased to see the 'Squire', as they
called always Mr. Jefferson, as they could have
been to meet their own best friends. They set
out for him the best they had, gave him the
nicest room, and seemed to hail his passage
as an event most interesting to themselves."
Flood's tavern was Jefferson's favorite second-night
lodging, and it was probably the location,
called "Ford's" in Henry Randall's account,
of an encounter which entered the fund
of popular anecdote about the travelling ex-president.
At this tavern Jefferson engaged in
a conversation with a local parson, first on the
subject of mechanics. The parson found his
interlocutor so knowledgeable he thought he
was an engineer, and after the next topic, agriculture,
had been exhausted, he was certain he
was talking to a very great farmer. Finally
their discussion of religion convinced the parson
that his companion was another clergyman,
"but he confessed that he could not discover to
what particular persuasion he leaned."

APRIL 15. "H. Flood's lodgg. &c. 4.17"

Mile 66.59. "Hunter's breakfast 2.08."Robert
Hunter's tavern was on what is now State
Route 24 near Concord on the present Camp
bell-Appomattox county line. In the eyes of his granddaughters, even on the third day on the
road, Jefferson was the ideal travelling companion:
"His cheerful conversation, so agreeable
and instructive, his singing as we journeyed
along, made the time pass pleasantly,
even travelling through the solitudes of Buckingham
and Campbell counties over indifferent
roads."

Mile 78.34. The travellers reached Campbell
Courthouse (now Rustburg). On Jefferson's
return journey in May, the landau's axle
broke somewhere in this vicinity. Jefferson's
favorite servant and butler Burwell always accompanied
him on the journeys to Poplar Forest
and rode behind the carriage on Jefferson's
saddle horse. When the axle broke Bumell
would have probably ridden to the nearest settlement
for assistance, while Jefferson remained
behind, entertaining his granddaughters
if they accompanied him, or reading if
alone. He always carried a book in his pocket
on his travels and, according to his granddaughters, that book was usually a tiny Latin edition of the lives of distinguished men by
Roman historian Cornelius Nepos. Jefferson
confirms this by mentioning "a little Cornelius
Nepos I had in my pocket" on a journey the
previous fall.

Mile 85.94. The carriage forded Flat Creek.

Mile 93. After three long days of travel Jefferson
arrived at his destination. The slaves
Burwell and Israel exchanged their roles as travelling attendant and postilion for those of
butler and assistant waiter. The Randolph
granddaughters turned to their books, drawings,
and embroidery. And Jefferson settled in
to a routine governed only by his own wishes
and the rotation of the earth. He casually dispensed
with the Copernican system in one tranquil
report from his retreat: "The sun, moon
and stars move here so much like what they do
at Monticello . . . that they afford nothing new
for observation." Each day offered unobstructed
enjoyment of solitary indoor occupation in
the morning, exercise on horseback in the middle
of the day, and the company of family
members at the appointed hour for society at
the end of the day. At Poplar Forest he passed
his time "in a tranquility and retirement much
adapted to my age and indolence." And today
the preservation of this dwelling, so much in
harmony with the pursuits of Jefferson's last
years, is finally assured.

Original Author: Lucia S. Goodwin, originally published as a Monticello Keepsake, April 12, 1985